Issue 312
November 12, 2004

INDEX

Articles

v Law students take on the Mafia by Tamsin Smith

v Guantanamo Bay Justice: 3 Hours Behind Closed Doors by Richard A. Serrano

v Sudanese Rape Victims Find Justice Blind to Plight by Emily Wax

v Iraqis Not Ready For Trials; U.N. to Withhold Training by Marlise Simons

v Mistakes, mistrust pervade terror trial by Richard Serrano and Greg Miller

v On Trial: Disorder in a Kangaroo Court by Rod Mickleburgh

The following article appeared on bbc.co.uk on November 6, 2004:

Law students take on the Mafia

By Tamsin Smith

BBC News, Rome

A university lecture hall packed full before 11am is a rare sight.

But law students taking part in Italy's first Mafia studies course at Rome University fill the aisles and stairways.

"Can you believe it - 500 students have enrolled," says a surprised Professor Mario Trapani, one of the course directors at Rome University's law faculty.

"We never expected this many applications. This course is really the first of its kind in Italy."

A high profile panel of experts provide the first lesson.

The students listen, captivated, as a leading Sicilian magistrate from Palermo recounts gruesome details of how a Cosa Nostra Mafia boss disposed of one unfortunate teenager.

A global cartel

But the teaching goes far beyond Godfather stereotypes.

It sets out to explore and explain the very roots of organised crime and the complex web of economic, social and political factors that nourish Italy's most notorious criminal network.

I know I am part of a future generation that can fight this. I want to

work as an anti-Mafia lawyer even though it's a tough life choice.

Martina, 21

Mafia studies student

"There simply isn't enough knowledge about how the Mafia is structured and how it operates. Only people who see it in action really know," says Doctor Pierluigi Vigna, Italy's chief anti-Mafia prosecutor.

"We will use real legal cases to discuss and explain the issues because this is one of Italy's most real problems.

"By bringing this knowledge into the university, we are also hoping that new ideas will be generated to help tackle Mafia."

Students will learn about the very different types of Mafia networks that exist in Italy: the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, La Camorra in Campania, La Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia and the Ndrangheta in Calabria - which investigators say is now the most powerful.

They will also examine involvement with Russian, Chinese and Albanian mafia gangs.

"The problem with the Italian Mafia today is that it's like any good business the most of globalisation and transnational mergers," says Senator Roberto Centaro, president of the Italian parliament's anti-Mafia commission.

"Even though we have made huge progress in our fight against it, the problem is that it is so engrained it is preventing healthy economic growth."

Understanding the mafia

In the university hall there are no yawns or early exits, just applause at the end of every lecture.

"This is a great chance to learn more about the Mafia," says Alberto, a law student. "I find it really interesting."

Many students choose to study the course because of strong personal convictions.

"My father lived and worked in Calabria in the south of Italy and I saw how the Mafia affected every aspect of his life, from buying a car to renting a house," says 23-year-old Alessandro.

"Understanding the Mafia is the best way to understand Italy and taking part in this course is like paying a tribute to my country and its problems."

Petra, from Sicily, feels the same way.

"We talk a lot about Mafia at home but I think people need to know more," says Petra, who is not sure that she actually wants a career fighting the Mafia.

"I want to become a lawyer but not an anti-mafia lawyer because it's too

dangerous."

Martina, 21, disagrees: "I know I am part of the future generation of important people who can fight this. I definitely want to work as an anti-Mafia lawyer even though it's a tough life choice."

The Mafia has inspired books, films and music but now there are high hopes that the first course in Mafia studies will inspire a new generation of committed lawmakers.

"This course signals the start of better understanding of how we legislate against the Mafia," says Senator Centaro, pointing at the packed lecture hall.

"And these young people are the lawyers, judges, policemen and women of the future. We are looking to them."

* * * * *

The following article appeared on latimes.com on November 7, 2004:

Guantanamo Bay Justice: 3 Hours Behind Closed Doors

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON - On hardback chairs, their hands shackled and the chains bolted to the floor, the detainees are given this one chance to prove their innocence. Some have already been at the U.S. prison camp in Cuba for nearly three years, and some are visibly fearful in this small room crowded with military authorities. Others are angry and defiant.

Musab Omar Ali Al Mudwani, an alleged Al Qaeda fighter trained in Afghanistan, was almost begging, records show. Please, he told the military officials, "look at the evidence with fairness."

Saeed Ahmed Al-Sarim, captured in the fighting around Tora Bora, asked repeatedly why the military justice system was "closed and silenced." He asked, "Are there going to be lawyers? Are we going to be able to contact our families?" Then he sighed in resignation. "Nothing is going to change," he said.

And Ali Husayn Abdullah Al Tays, who once stayed at an Afghan safe house frequented by Osama bin Laden, lashed out at his captors. "Why are you Americans asking me about this?" he shouted. "Why is it your business? Tell me what business it is of the Americans."

In the last three months military officials at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, home to the prison known as Camp Delta, have been conducting three-hour Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The tribunals began July 30 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees could not be held indefinitely and that they had a right to some form of legal process.

Each prisoner now gets a hearing, one chance to convince the American authorities that they should not remain in custody as enemy combatants - the classification assigned to them when they were originally scooped off the battlefields of Central Asia.

"We think this is a professional process. It's very rigorous. It's fair," said Navy Capt. Beci Brenton, a Pentagon spokeswoman. "We take extra steps to make sure the detainees understand the process, and they are given a good opportunity to speak for themselves."

The Process Debated

Critics are unconvinced. They note that only one of the 104 tribunal verdicts has resulted in a prisoner going home. They also say that the hearings are a mere formality, forced upon the Pentagon, and that they mock the U.S. justice system because detainees are not allowed attorneys and rarely can put on evidence or offer the testimony of witnesses in their defense.

"The process is basically a sham," said Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner, who has been working to free 12 Kuwaiti detainees.

Eugene R. Fidell, president of the Washington-based National Institute of Military Justice, said the tribunals should have been held in Afghanistan and Pakistan when the detainees were first captured, and evidence and witnesses were still fresh.

"These are not a meaningful substitute for the competent tribunals required under the Geneva Conventions," he said.

And Fidell scoffed that all but one verdict has gone against the detainees. "That's a great batting average, isn't it? They're pitching a nearly perfect game."

In recent weeks documents have begun surfacing in U.S. District Court in Washington, and other Pentagon materials have been obtained by The Times, that for the first time show how justice is being meted out in those small hearing rooms in Cuba, where about 550 people are detained.

The Times was able to review the cases of 47 detainees, along with transcripts of the tribunals, written statements from the prisoners and letters of support from family members insisting their loved ones are innocent. Access to the actual hearings was severely limited by the Pentagon; reporters did not have free access to the hearing rooms and could not learn either the name of the detainee or the full charges against him.

As a result, the hearings have received almost no news coverage.

Even critics concede that the tribunals must grapple with a difficult issue: At least some of the Guantanamo detainees are probably innocent, but it also seems likely that some remain potential threats to Americans. Before the tribunals began, some detainees who were released took up arms against U.S. forces again.

What critics charge, however, is that the tribunal system as it is now being implemented does not give detainees adequate resources to defend themselves.

In the hearings, the government almost always presents evidence to suggest the detainees had direct ties to Al Qaeda, that they were trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan and that many were captured during the war to defeat the Taliban waged after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in America.

One man was deemed a close associate of a known suicide bomber. Another was captured with the cellphone number belonging to Abu Zubeida, an Al Qaeda operations chief and top aide to Bin Laden.

Some are listed as Bin Laden bodyguards. One reportedly was with the Al Qaeda leader shortly before he disappeared into the caves of Tora Bora.

Another, Mamdouh Ibrahim Ahmed Habib, allegedly told U.S. interrogators that he helped train "several of the 11 September 2001 hijackers in martial arts and had planned to hijack a plane" himself.

Despite the gravity of such charges, there is a sense in the documents that the prisoners have few resources for attempting to disprove them.

For one thing, detainees are permitted to request testimony from witnesses that might help them, but the documents show such requests often are turned down as "irrelevant." Also, evidence that might exonerate detainees, such as hospital records and visa and passport materials, often cannot be found by U.S. authorities or are ruled inadmissible.

Redouane Khalid, for example, is a French citizen captured after he allegedly spent summer 2001 in a safe house in a neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan, known as "Taliban- and Al Qaeda-occupied territory."

Of five witnesses that Khalid wanted to call, only one was deemed "available." The remaining four were fellow prisoners who earlier had been returned to France.

Khalid next asked that his passport, visa and a return airline ticket from Afghanistan to London he carried at the time of his capture be presented in his defense - presumably to bolster a contention that he had not planned to stay in Afghanistan and fight. Tribunal authorities, however, simply noted that "a search was conducted for these items on Guantanamo Bay but they could not be located."

The files also contain letters from family members attesting that their loved ones are not terrorists and pleading for their release. But there is no indication the messages were taken seriously by the tribunals, each composed of three military officers.

The family of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni picked up in Pakistan, said he was injured in a 1994 accident that left him with a fractured skull, the loss of one eye and no hearing in one ear. They said they had received maybe a dozen short letters from him since his capture, and that in one he described Guantanamo as "my island of hell."

The brother of Al-Sarim, who now is resigned to the prospect that "nothing is going to change" for him in prison, wrote that the detainee's 4-year-old daughter "waits everyday by the door" for him to come home.

Claims of Abuse

The panels also seem to give little or no credence to complaints from detainees that they have been tortured by U.S. intelligence forces and prison guards.

Yasin Qasem Muhammad Ismail, a Yemeni who reportedly was by Bin Laden's side when the terrorism chief eluded capture, said that "whenever we spoke to the interrogators we were punished."

He added, "We were hit and tortured. Not only did I get hit and punched, they broke my nose. The Americans did this to me. When I arrived in Cuba I got hit in the place where we eat. I got hit on the shoulder and it was very painful. It was dislocated or something. They threatened to break it monthly even when I got to Cuba. They told me I would be here for a long time."

But Ismail knew the panel did not believe him. "This tribunal is not a legal proceeding," he said to them. "It is a military proceeding. It doesn't matter what I say. It's military, and there are no judges."

Al-Sarim was frightened that he might be placed in a special cellblock where he'd be hurt.

"My emotional state right now - I'm nervous," he told the panel. "Being in prison, you can't say everything you want to say.. And I'm telling you, I'm talking to you right now and I'm scared that you might take me to Romeo Block or any of the other blocks you take people to."

A tribunal member interjected, "That is not our purpose here. Our purpose here is to get to the truth."

Al-Sarim told him, "That is the truth."

But the military did give great weight to worries that many prisoners are still threats to the United States and its allies.

Salman Yahya Hassan Mohammed Rabeil was captured with other squad members from the Al Farouq terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. Documents show that in interrogations by U.S. intelligence officers, he "advised" them he still meant to hurt America.

Yet in his statement to the tribunal, Rabeil denied it. "This is absolutely false. It is outrageous. I never said such a thing as I would harm or threaten the United States," he said.

Like most of the rest, he was labeled an enemy combatant and returned to his cell.

The sole detainee who was released won his freedom in September, documents show. He had participated in a jihad in Afghanistan and had undergone paramilitary training there. While returning to Pakistan he was captured by Northern Alliance forces "after fleeing from helicopter gunfire."

But what was his name, and why was he alone judged not to be an enemy combatant after all? The Pentagon would not say.

* * * * *

The following article appeared on washingtonpost.com on November 8, 2004:

Sudanese Rape Victims Find Justice Blind to Plight

By Emily Wax

Washington Post Foreign Service

OTASH, Sudan -- The breeze ruffled Katuma Abdullah Adam's green scarf as the sheik and his helpers slowly poured water over her head. Once, twice, three times they repeated the ritual as the pregnant 15-year-old wept in shame.

"You can now enter paradise," the sheik said, ushering Katuma inside a dark hut so her swollen body could also be washed, along with her nose and mouth, as a symbolic cleansing of the sin she had suffered.

To the family of Katuma, who was raped and impregnated by an Arab militia fighter five months ago in the war-torn region of Darfur, this shamanistic cure was the only form of redemption available in a situation where legal justice is elusive, officials are embarrassed to discuss rape and the chances of catching and prosecuting attackers are next to none.

While a ritual bath cannot substitute for a court of law, according to Sudanese culture it may help mitigate the negative long-term social effects of rape -- the public ostracism of the victim, her devaluation as a future bride and the lifelong stigma that will fall on any child born of the crime.

According to the United Nations and human rights groups, thousands of women have been raped by gunmen in the course of a 20-month conflict that pits African rebel groups against Sudanese troops and pro-government Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. The United Nations says more than 70,000 people have died.

In August and September, the French medical charity Doctors Without Borders reported that it had treated 123 cases of rape in South Darfur, at least 100 of which occurred during attacks on villages by armed men. Victims said they were assaulted at gunpoint and in some cases gang-raped.

Despite widespread documentation of the rapes by international groups and promises by the government to investigate and prosecute rape cases, sexual violence remains a low official priority. Sudanese society ostracizes rape victims and associates them with deep shame.

There is also little public trust in the police and the courts, because Janjaweed militiamen accused of the crimes are seen as backed by the government.

A recent report by Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, called rape "a weapon of war in Darfur," often accompanied by racial insults, whipping, undressing and public sexual acts as a form of humiliation. To the Arab Janjaweed, attacking African women is seen as a way to mortify African rebel groups, the report said.

Many women have also reported being told by rapists that they wanted to produce Arab babies and weaken African tribal lines.

Amnesty International documented hundreds of rape cases and described the horrific long-term social consequences for the women. But U.N. officials and others said international pressure had done little to make local officials address the plight of women who are victims of rape, as well as resulting health problems and pregnancies.

"The government as a whole is in denial about the scale and the severity of the problems," said Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, who visited Darfur in late September. "Cases where attempts are made by women to report to the police are disbelieved, or in any event, no further action is taken on their report."

On a recent trip to South Darfur, U.S. Reps. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) visited camps in the region and were told they would see a "rape tent," where victims could report the crimes. When they arrived at the designated camp, however, there was no such tent. Refugees said there never had been one.

Jackson shook his head and said: "These guys are professional sugarcoaters. What

are we going to do about this?"

Abdullal Abu Bakar, who works for the government and runs the camp, winked conspiratorially and laughed, partly from embarrassment. "There was not a single case, I tell you," he said. "That's why we closed the tent.' "

Innocence Lost

Katuma Adam still sees the men in her nightmares. It was late May, the height of the rainy season, when the Janjaweed gunmen attacked her village in North Darfur. One of them grabbed her. His hand slipped under her dress.

"He pushed into me and it was hurting me very much," she recounted recently, after the ritual washing in a shelter built of sticks and rags, inside a camp for victims of violence in Darfur. "I had no strength. I just shut my eyes."

Afterward, she said, she was covered in blood and crying. "I felt very, very thirsty and in shock." She was not yet 15.

There was nowhere Katuma could turn for help -- no counseling services, no legal aid offices, no sympathetic law enforcement agency. Darfur, a region engulfed by human crisis and flooded with refugees, barely has a functioning police force or justice system.

For weeks after the attack, Katuma remained sequestered in her hut, her head pillowed on a pile of rocks. She stayed inside even through the thick afternoon heat, too ashamed to emerge and seek shade under a tree like others in the camp.

She said her legs felt like stone and her mind was numb with depression. She worried constantly about her child's future, and her own.

"I will never find love," she said after the cleansing ceremony. "Will this washing help me find a husband?" Katuma and her mother, Aisha Bakhet Adam, consented to be identified by name.

Aisha Adam, 43, a sturdy widow with six children, has no time for melancholy musings. She is on a mission. Every day, she listens to radio reports about the war. She knows that many people have died and many more have been displaced. And she knows that in four months, her daughter will give birth to a child of the Janjaweed.

Aisha Adam has few illusions about the chances of proving the rapist's guilt. What she needs is evidence of her daughter's innocence, a way to convince potential suitors and their families that she did not ask to be raped. A police report or a court case would be ideal, she said, but she had no idea how to approach the government.

After thinking it over, she decided the water ritual might help reduce her daughter's shame and protect her unborn child from becoming a social outcast.

So on a recent day, the mother crawled out of her waist-high hut, doffed an orange head scarf and oversize sunglasses and trudged purposefully along the footpaths of this garbage-strewn camp until she found Adam Abdul Karim, a local sheik, waiting in a food line. She told him she needed his help.

"I don't think the government will ever catch this man, and I don't think my daughter will ever mend her heart unless we do something now," she told him. "I am very ashamed, [but] I am trying to hide my embarrassment and help my daughter. Right now, we are alone with this problem."

Karim consulted a sheaf of ragged notes and suggested he perform the ritual washing. It was a custom normally applied in local African tribes when a woman's husband died or she gave birth to a child out of wedlock. This would be the first time at this camp, Karim said, that it would be used to exonerate a victim of sexual violence.

"She is unclean, touched by her enemy," he said. "This is one option we can try."

Officials See No Evil

The government of Sudan says it takes rape seriously, and its officials say they are making a sincere effort to address the problem. Under sharia, or Islamic law, rape is viewed as a serious crime; the penalty is 10 years in jail and 100 lashes.

Recently, the government also suspended a law requiring women to report a rape to the police before they can receive medical help. Nevertheless, there remains a widespread belief among senior officials that the victims are fabricating their stories.

"That is not our culture," said Hussein Ibrahim, a minister with the government's Humanitarian Affairs Commission. "It's just impossible and all half-truths. Okay, maybe there are one case or two cases, like anywhere, like in the United States or Britain. But they are not widespread."

But medical workers and human rights activists said they have been dismayed and angered by official suggestions that rape victims are making up sensational stories. Even as children are being born from militia rapes, they said, not a single arrest has been made or a single case brought to court since the war began.

"I don't think it's fair to say the women are fabricating this," Arbour said during a recent visit to Khartoum, the capital. "I would find it very, very bizarre that the women would lie, considering the shame they receive for saying they are raped. There are very severe levels of sexual violence here that are not being properly addressed."

Arbour said she saw no evidence of a government rape-inquiry commission that had been promised, and that despite making appointments, she was unable to locate anyone from the commission.

Inside Katuma's hut, the sheik's female helpers washed her back, her face, her nostrils, her mouth. They emptied pitchers down her left side, then her right. Water dripped from her entire body and tears ran down her cheeks. She stood in a muddy pool of water.

"I don't want this," the pregnant girl mumbled. "I want to lie down." Already shy, she dreaded being stared at, having people know. She did not want her picture taken, did not want to go outdoors, and said she might just remain in the camp forever.

Outside, a cluster of ragged children peered through holes in the straw walls, dying of curiosity. They pressed in so hard they nearly knocked over her hut.

In the gloom, Karim supervised the work and nodded in satisfaction. But still, he said, Katuma's life would be hard.

"The man will want a virgin wife without a baby first," he explained. "Maybe, years from now, people will understand she was hurt in war by the enemy and is now clean. But it would be better if the courts and the government could . . . set an example that it was okay and it wasn't the fault of the women. Even a few arrests would help."

* * * * *

The following article appeared on nytimes.com on October 22, 2004:

Iraqis Not Ready for Trials; U.N. to Withhold Training

By Marlise Simons

LONDON, Oct. 18 - A weeklong training session for the Iraqi judges and prosecutors chosen to try Saddam Hussein and his top associates ended in London on Monday with both the Iraqis and their Western advisers agreeing on one thing: The Iraqis are unprepared to tackle full-fledged trials any time soon.

It was equally troubling to many participants that despite invitations to top lawyers and judges from the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague to join the sessions, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, barred their participation and raised concerns about the tribunal in general.

A letter from Mr. Annan's office expressed "serious doubts" that the Iraqi Special Tribunal could meet "relevant international standards." It reiterated his view that the United Nations should not assist national courts that can order the death penalty and said that the organization had no legal mandate to assist the tribunal.

The two developments suggest that despite assertions by the interim Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, that the trials would begin as early as November, the likelihood of an early start seems remote. American officials here said that some pretrial hearings might take place in December.

The London training session was organized by American lawyers who work with the Iraqi investigators and judges in Baghdad, assisting them in setting up courtrooms and preparing trials. Britain also lent its support, with England's chief justice, Lord Woolf, and a leading human rights lawyer, Judge Geoffrey Robertson, among those addressing the group.

The event was not publicized because of security concerns for the 42 Iraqis - almost the entire Iraqi Special Tribunal - who returned home on Monday. Organizers granted a reporter access to the gathering on condition that any article appear after the Iraqis had arrived home.

Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, an American who served both as judge and president of the tribunal in The Hague until 1999, said she had come because she felt a duty to help. She called the hands-off order from the United Nations "a travesty," saying, "This is about judges helping judges, this is not about politics."

But some human rights lawyers agree with Mr. Annan. Richard Dicker, a director of Human Rights Watch, said by telephone that there were still "glaring human rights shortcomings" in the statute of the Iraqi tribunal.

For example, confessions obtained through coercion would be admissible as evidence.

"In a fair trial, the accused's rights must be respected," Mr. Dicker said, adding, "The first group of accused, including Saddam Hussein, had no access to defense lawyers when they were interrogated nor when they were brought to court on July 1."

At the London meetings, several Western experts said the Iraqis appeared well-informed about their national laws but were unacquainted with the complexities of international law used to deal with mass killing and genocide.

The Iraqi judges themselves, in numerous conversations, concurred. Some said they had little grasp of what one called "this whole new body of law."

"This has been very beneficial because these crimes are very new to Iraqi judges," said Raid Juhi al-Saadi, 35, the youngest lawyer here, who became famous when he presided at Saddam Hussein's arraignment on July 1. "We would like more international expertise to assist us," he said. "The literature available to us in Arabic is very limited."

The American organizers of the event said that because of strict security rules the names of other judges could not be revealed. But in private they were willing to discuss their concerns.

Judges and prosecutors repeatedly said they wanted more practical training and asked for more material, including samples of investigations and key rulings from The Hague, translated into Arabic.

In one conversation, three judges, who had long careers as military and civilian lawyers, talked about feeling caught between international public opinion and the opinion of Iraqis. They want experienced judges from other nations to sit on the bench with them but fear that many Iraqis will see this as humiliating. "The public will say that outsiders are deciding the process," one of the judges said.

Several participants said that involving other countries, and preferably the United Nations, would provide greater legitimacy to the tribunal. "It would stop the impression that the whole thing is run by Americans," said one prosecutor.

Supporters of Saddam Hussein and Arab media, he added, "are regularly attacking us on this."

The model for the Iraqi tribunal, conceived in Washington, is to have Iraqi-led trials with American support and foreign advisers. But human rights groups had urged Washington to create a mixed model with international, even United Nations-approved, judges from the start.

There were lively discussions here about Iraq's death penalty, because the judges were aware that the United Nations and many European countries have said they had problems helping a tribunal that could impose capital punishment.

"I myself would rather see Saddam go to jail for many years so that future generations can see this," said one Baghdad prosecutor, speaking through a translator. "But we cannot suddenly abolish the death sentence now. The people would be outraged."

The judges and prosecutors grappled with the notion of plea-bargaining, a concept that was foreign to them.

After one session, Joanna Korner from Britain, a former senior prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, said she was pleased because "I actually managed to get my judges to understand there is more than one crime against humanity." She was describing the crimes that involve systematic and widespread attacks against a civilian population, which include murder, persecution, mass rape, torture and deportation.

Another workshop dealt with the protection of witnesses, both for the prosecution and the defense, clearly an enormous challenge if trials begin in Iraq while the violence continues.

A longtime strategy for the Iraqi Special Tribunal was proposed by Pierre-Richard Prosper, the United States ambassador for war crimes issues, in a closing address. He urged the group to focus on the leadership and send midlevel suspects to ordinary courts in order to lighten their own case load. He also suggested creating a truth commission

allowing victims to speak. "Victims badly need to be heard," he said. He told the judges to communicate with the public. "Let the Iraqi people know what you are doing," he said, "and make the public your allies."

Judge Kirk McDonald offered some solace to the group, some of whom seemed awed by the tasks ahead. "Ten years ago, we were exactly where you were, starting a tribunal, with no experience," she said. "You'll design your own court as you want it. My advice is: Transparency, transparency, transparency."

* * * * *

The following article appeared on boston.com on October 17, 2004:

Mistakes, mistrust pervade terror trial

Convictions tossed in Detroit case

By Richard Serrano and Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times

DETROIT -- When federal agents went through the apartment door before sunrise on Sept. 17, 2001, Glock automatics at the ready, what they found caused government officials all the way to the top of the Justice Department to snap to attention.

Less than a week after Islamic extremists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, here were three North African Muslim men caught in an unfurnished apartment with airport security passes, forged passports, videotapes of American landmarks, and a crude sketch labeled ''American base in Turkey" in Arabic.

They also had virulent jihadist tapes, including a rant against Christians and Jews that said: ''Allah, kill them all. Don't keep any of them alive."

US Attorney General John Ashcroft proclaimed the breakup of a dangerous terrorist cell. Less than two years later, Detroit yielded the first trials and convictions of alleged terrorists in the United States after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But the seemingly brilliant prosecution soon imploded. Today, the terrorism convictions have been dismissed because the government withheld evidence that could have helped the defense. The US Justice Department is investigating its chief prosecutor in the case, Richard G. Convertino. He is suing the department.

The waters are so muddied that it might never be known whether the defendants actually were involved in terrorism.

The Detroit case also laid bare a problem in the government's basic strategy. To forestall attacks, officials have adopted the domestic equivalent of President Bush's doctrine of preemptive action. But prosecuting suspects before they strike forces investigators into the murky world of intent.

Evidence can be ambiguous, solid testimony scarce. It is up to prosecutors to distinguish between terrorists and hapless immigrants with phony papers.

''There's an expression that you sometimes fall in love with your case," said Keith Corbett, Convertino's trial partner. ''There was just so much emphasis in trying to address the war on terror."

The problems grow when officials are fighting with one another. And the Detroit case was rife with animosity. To Convertino, politically motivated officials in Washington, D.C., had a vendetta against him. To the Justice Department, Convertino was an overzealous prosecutor who ignored defendants' rights.

US District Judge Gerald E. Rosen, who handled the case, warned that the war against terrorism is never an excuse for trampling on the Constitution.

''Unfortunately," he added, ''that is precisely what has occurred in the course of this case."

When federal agents went to the two-story duplex south of downtown Detroit, they were seeking Nabil al-Marabh, No. 27 on a terrorist watch-list. Instead they found three immigrants from North Africa.

Karim Koubriti answered the door and said Marabh had moved out. Koubriti, Ahmed Hannan, and Farouk Ali-Haimoud were arrested, and others followed. Youssef Hmimssa, whose photo had been found in the apartment, was picked up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Another associate, Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, was grabbed off a bus in North Carolina carrying fraudulent documents and $90,000 in cash.

The suspects, in their 20s and 30s, were charged with providing material support or resources to terrorists -- all but Hmimssa, who became the prosecutors' star witness.

Convertino came to believe that the defendants were scouts for terrorists. He said evidence suggested that Ali-Haimoud had planned to send money and weapons to ''the brothers in Algeria" and that Hannan had memorized the layout of the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan. There were indications that Elmardoudi had gone to Turkey using aliases.

With the case in the national spotlight, Washington's terrorism task force, led by Barry Sabin, was soon immersed in the activities of Convertino's team. According to the prosecutor, demands from Washington came almost daily.

With the trials just weeks away, Sabin decided the indictment needed reworking. He ordered prosecutors to clear their calendars for a meeting. When he arrived, the atmosphere grew testy. After Sabin asked where prosecutors had gotten the legal reasoning in one part of the indictment, Convertino lost it.

A high-ranking Justice Department official said Convertino ''ignored things he was told to do by us."

''He really, really, really wanted to have a piece of 9/11," the official said. ''He wanted to be the hero."

The trial began March 27, 2003.

On June 3, 2003, Elmardoudi and Koubriti were convicted of terrorism-related charges, as well as identification fraud. Hannan was acquitted of charges linked to terrorism but convicted of ID fraud. Ali-Haimoud was acquitted on all counts.

Publicly, Convertino's bosses in Detroit and Washington hailed the verdicts, but a month later Convertino and Corbett were summoned to separate meetings with the US attorney in Detroit, Jeffrey Collins.

Corbett expected a pat on the back but emerged red-faced. With Convertino, Collins started out praising the closing argument, then got to the point. As Convertino described it, Collins said, ''I've been ordered to reprimand you" for not cooperating with Washington.

In late summer, Convertino got a call from an aide to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asking Convertino to testify about identity fraud.

Alarms went off at the Justice Department. Grassley was a fierce critic of the department and an ardent protector of whistle-blowers. The day after telling his boss about the Grassley invitation, Convertino said, he was taken off the terrorism case.

When Grassley found out, he contacted Ashcroft, decrying the alleged retaliation. Then Grassley subpoenaed Convertino to appear before his committee.

Convertino said he did not criticize Washington when he testified, but he already was seen as ''off the reservation."

Within days, Collins had assigned three lawyers to review Convertino's cases dating to the mid-1990s. The terrorism case was reassigned to Assistant US Attorney Eric Straus.

Convertino got a copy of the inmate's letter more than a year before trial. But he and Corbett chose to view the prisoner as trolling for a deal. He was not credible, they decided, and they did not give his letter to the defense.

When Straus saw the letter after the trial, he told his bosses and lawyers for the defendants. They sought a new trial. Outraged, the judge ordered a hearing to sort out the matter.

The inmate refused to talk. Hmimssa acknowledged talking to the prisoner -- ''We played chess, we exchanged books" -- but denied telling his cellmate he had lied to the FBI or other authorities.

Alan Gershel, head of the criminal division in Detroit, told the judge he had ordered the letter handed over before the trial ended. But Corbett and Convertino said they never got such an order.

In February, Ashcroft appointed a Cleveland prosecutor, Craig Morford, to investigate whether other potentially exculpatory evidence had been withheld. Morford reported a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct.

Convertino disputes many of Morford's findings.

''This is retaliation; it's an absolute shame what they're doing," Convertino said. ''It's more important to destroy me and destroy the case than it is to fight the war on terrorism."

Last month, three days after getting Morford's report, the judge dismissed the terrorism-related convictions and ordered new trials on the ID fraud convictions. Defense lawyers hope the remaining charges will be dropped.

* * * * *

The following article appeared on theglobeandmail.com on October 23, 2004:

ON TRIAL: DISORDER IN A KANGAROO COURT

By Rod Mickleburgh

BEIJING -- Judge Number Two was asleep. The policeman at the back had his eyes closed. But no one was nodding off in the public gallery at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, where Zhou Juan's gaze was riveted on her handcuffed husband.

After nine months in custody, Zhao Xiangchun was finally getting his few minutes in court.

On a chair in the middle of the room, with the more wide-awake head judge staring down at him, Mr. Zhao did not look confident. As he answered questions from a plodding prosecutor who seemed barely old enough to drink, his wife gripped the rail in front of her.

Mr. Zhao was one of 11 alleged members of a car-theft ring. Not so long ago, the pilfering might have involved nothing more valuable than Flying Pigeon bicycles. In today's Beijing, it's cars, feeding on automobile fever in a city that registers 800